Dominican Republic monument presented to Québec

Françoise Mercure, CEO of the National Capital Commission of Québec, Raquel Jacobo, Consul General of the Dominican Republic in Montréal, and Daniel Regalado, Founding President and member of the Administrative Council of the Dominican-Canadian Foundation, at the signing of the memorandum of understanding.

The President and Executive Director of the National Capital Commission of Québec, Françoise Mercure, has received a bust of Juan Pablo Duarte, father of the Dominican nation, from the Consul General of the Dominican Republic in Montréal, Raquel Jacobo.

The President and Executive Director of the National Capital Commission of Québec, Françoise Mercure, has received a bust of Juan Pablo Duarte, father of the Dominican nation, from the Consul General of the Dominican Republic in Montréal, Raquel Jacobo.

Presented at an event held on June 28, the monument is a gift to Québec City from the Dominican Republic and the Dominican-Canadian Foundation. Event participants included representatives from the Dominican-Canadian Foundation, the Consulate of the Dominican Republic in Montréal, the Dominican Republic Tourism Office in Montréal, the Advisory Council for Dominicans in Montréal, the National Capital Commission of Québec and the Ministère des Relations internationales, de la Francophonie et du Commerce extérieur.

The bronze bust is being given in 2013, since this year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Juan Pablo Duarte, the father of the country. It will be erected by the National Capital Commission of Québec in the Parc de l’Amérique-Latine, located between the Québec Court House and the mouth of the St. Charles River. Managed by the Commission since 1996, the park already has several monuments on display offered by Latin American countries: Simón Bolívar (Venezuela), José Martí (Cuba), Juan Montalvo (Ecuador), José Gervasio Artigas (Uruguay), Bernardo O'Higgins (Chile), Toussaint Louverture (Haiti), Juana Azurduy de Padilla (Bolivia) and Miguel Grau (Peru).

Juan Pablo Duarte (1813-1876) was a political and pro-Dominican independence activist. With Francisco del Rosario Sanchez and Ramón Matías Mella, he was one of the three Padres de la Patria (fathers of the Fatherland), founders and national heroes of the Dominican Republic.

Designed by sculptor Domingo Guaba, the bust of Duarte is 100 cm high and 80 cm wide and weighs more than 200 kilograms.